A Quote by Oliver Goldsmith

Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity.

Oliver Goldsmith

Quote Topics

Both Integrity Trifles Understanding Wit Without

Quote Author

Oliver Goldsmith
Irish - Novelist
November 10, 1730 - April 4, 1774

Both wit and understanding are trifles without integrity; it is that which gives value to every character. The ignorant peasant, without fault, is greater than the philosopher with many; for what is genius or courage without a heart?

Oliver Goldsmith

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.

Dee Hock

By wit we search divine aspect above, By wit we learn what secrets science yields, By wit we speak, by wit the mind is rul'd, By wit we govern all our actions; Wit is the loadstar of each human thought, Wit is the tool by which all things are wrought.

Robert Greene

Integrity is at the heart of commerce in the world in which we live. Honesty and integrity comprise the very underpinnings of society.....Indeed, the strength and safety of any organization-including the family-lie in the integrity of its members. Without personal integrity, there can be no confidence. Without confidence, there can be no prospect of permanent success.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honor without deserving; To other some, deserving without honor; Some wit, some wealth,--and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth.

George Chapman

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

Jean de la Bruyere

Put crudely, one is left with a choice between two unsatisfactory combinations: artistic integrity married to spiritual compromise; and spiritual integrity married to artistic banality-or, worse, art compromised on both counts. Neither one will satisfy those who recognize the fundamental necessity of integrity in both faith and art.

John Walford

When all the scaffolding is removed it is our integrity that both defines us and identifies us. Men of integrity are like the Rock of Gibraltar - steadfast and immovable; men without it are like the shifting sands on the Sahara Desert - tossed to and fro by every variant wind of life.

Tad R. Callister

Both art and science are bent on the understanding of the forces that shape existence, and both call for a dedication to what is. Neither of them can tolerate capricious subjectivity because both are subject to their criteria of truth. Both require precision, order, and discipline because no comprehensible statement can be made without these. Both accept the sensory world as what the Middle Ages called signatura regrum, the signature of things, but in quite different ways.

Rudolf Arnheim

Grief hath two tongues; and never woman yet Could rule them both without ten women's wit.

William Shakespeare

A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I shall endeavour to enliven Morality with Wit, and to temper Wit with Morality, that my Readers may, if possible, both Ways findtheir Account in the Speculation of the Day.

Joseph Addison

Only in the exceptional case, where the integrity and competence of the advisers have been thoroughly demonstrated, should the investor act upon the advice of others without understanding and approving the decision made.

Benjamin Graham

All big things are made up of trifles. My entire life has been built on trifles.

Mahatma Gandhi

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

Jean de la Bruyere

It is true that integrity alone won't make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.